Update: Alcoa Pops On Surprise Q1 Profit

By Teresa Rivas

Aluminum giant Alcoa (AA) officially sounded the start of earnings season with a surprise profit, sending shares up nearly 4% after hours. (UPDATE: Shares are now trading up 5.5%.)

The company reported first quarter earnings of $94 million or nine cents a share; excluding one-time items, earnings were ten cents a share. Last year the company reported a first-quarter profit of 27 cents a share. Revenue was near flat at $6 billion.

The results were much better than analysts’ expected: The consensus forecast was for the company to report a loss of three cents per share on $5.77 billion in revenue. The results broke Alcoa’s three-quarter streak of disappointing EPS–it hasn’t reported a bottom-line surprise since April 2011 (although this marks the fourth straight quarter of better-than-expected revenue).

However, the Street isn’t optimistic about other metals producers — the sector is expected to be the worst performing in the S&P 500 this earnings season, with an expected 14.5% year-over-year decline.

A number of other big companies are reporting this week, including Google (GOOG) on Thursday. JPMorgan (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) kick off financials’ reports on Friday.

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The blog is written by Ben Levisohn, a former stock trader who has covered financial markets for the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and BusinessWeek.